Night Practice. Practice at Night. 4/25

In an effort to shake things up a bit during a six-day week of practice before his team opens the playoffs Saturday at Binghamton, WBS Penguins coach John Hynes scheduled a night practice Thursday.

The team took the ice at about 7 p.m. in front of about 100 fans and went through a pretty standard 50-minute workout, focusing first on the defensive zone and later on special teams. The Penguins were going to scrimmage for a few minutes at the end of the practice, but they ran out of time.

Hynes explains why he scheduled the evening practice.

“It gives guys a little extra rest because it’s almost a day and a half before they have to practice,” he said. “It’s something that’s different. It gave us a chance this morning to meet on a couple of things instead of cramming everything together. The other part is to get activated and get going at 7 o’clock at night. Usually, in the regular season, you’re going to face some type of a midweek game. The weeks where you don’t, a lot of times guys are trying to get going. So it was for planning, it was for rest, it was for a different mindset.”

The Penguins faced a layoff of five days or longer five times this season. They went 2-2-1 in the games following those layoffs.

According to AHL lore, about 10 years ago, the Springfield Falcons went a whole season practicing in the evening rather than in the morning. On the surface, it makes sense. If you’re going to play at night, why not practice at night?

It didn’t work, largely because many players, not having to be up and at ‘em for practice early in the morning made some, shall we say, detrimental lifestyle choices after the evening practices.

Hynes said he wasn’t worried about that happening with the Penguins at this time of year.

“Guys are all dialed in,” Hynes said. “In the regular season, I think it’s best to have it in the morning. But at this point, the level of commitment of everyone is so high, I think it was safe to do it.”

Captain Joey Mormina said he is glad Hynes isn’t planning to make evening practices a regular thing.

“I would hate it,” Mormina said. “I was at the park with the kids. In the yard with the kids. Three o’clock rolled around and I had zero energy left. For me, that would be the retirement party right there.”

A winner of first-place honors in the blogging category of the 2012 Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors awards, Penguins Insider was created to give local hockey fans an interactive, in-depth way to follow the team they so passionately support. The blog's author, beat writer Jonathan Bombulie, has been covering the team since its inception in 1999. Contact him at jbombulie@aol.com

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